


Empty rooms, empty hearts

by notveryhandy



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (1963), Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-30
Updated: 2020-03-30
Packaged: 2021-03-01 00:16:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,285
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23396128
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notveryhandy/pseuds/notveryhandy
Summary: There’s a daffodil on the windowsill, and damned if he’s going to move it.
Relationships: Eleventh Doctor & Amy Pond, The Doctor/The Master
Comments: 5
Kudos: 21





	Empty rooms, empty hearts

There’s a daffodil on the windowsill, and damned if he’s going to move it. Plastic, of course - any other would rot. He looks around the bare room, takes in the faded walls and broken mementos.

It’s a mess. A lonely, old, tired mess. The owner doesn’t care for it, and by now he can’t remember why he cares about it. It’s a waste of space, too; a keepsake, one whose worth was long forgotten.

Why is it even still here? Nobody likes it, least of all him. Nobody uses it, nobody has been inside for so long. He thinks he should tidy it, get rid of it.

He never does.

* * *

There’s a pair of gloves in the corner. Singed leather. Slightly charred. Startlingly visible against the plain grey of the walls. It’s dark in here, the curtains drawn tightly so no-one can see outside.

Maybe it’s easier that way. No way in, no way out. He should soundproof this room, leave no way for the humans - his friends - to get in. It might be nicer, at least for a few days.

It won’t last, of course. He looks up at the window again, and quietly wonders why there’s a windowsill in the room. This is the middle of the Tardis, why should anyone need sun? Least of all -

Never mind. He stands up, still staring pointlessly at the wall. Nothing is going to change any time soon.

* * *

There’s a picture on the wall. It hangs crooked, badly put on and badly maintained. The glass is clouded and cracked, somebody's fist carelessly driven into it. Barely readable, the drawing is is old and scrappy.

Faces lost to old age and fear and death, hanging right in front of him. Almost mocking, except back then it was only teasing. Only. The men in the picture are smiling, rough caricatures of themselves but intricately detailed at the same time. It’s warming.

Doodles in sketchbooks and on the walls and scrawled on hands. Under bunks, etched into tables, any spare space worked. In a world full of scientists, only a few artists existed.

And it’s beautiful.

* * *

There’s a leather jacket thrown over a rickety chair, and it’s as if no-one has left. Though he’s smiling right now, he feels like he’s broken his ribs, or run straight into a sledgehammer. The room smells faintly of smoke, familiar and foreign all at once.

He stands there. He doesn’t know how long. It might be hours, or days, or weeks. Forever, for all he cares. Eyes screwed shut, hands clenched around the chair with such force that he feels the wood splintering.

It doesn’t occur to him that his eyes are shut to stop him crying, not until he feels tears running down his face. He doesn’t know why he’s still here, mourning for someone who’ll never give a damn. Maybe he thinks standing there long enough will bring them back.

It doesn’t.

* * *

He remembers a time before. There was a man standing in his Tardis, holding a glass up to the light pouring through a pointlessly placed window, making beautiful shapes in the empty room. Chin held high, frozen there.

Except when he stepped him and broke the silence. An interruption. He hears the memory as clear as day, though there is no sound. He sees his friend vividly, though their features have long since changed. He recalls what is lost.

It isn’t raising the clouds of depression that have settled over his head. It isn’t cracking open the shell; he is as cold as can be, because this is the Time War and weakness means death.

Weakness, he thinks, is what got him here in the first place.

* * *

There’s nothing left this time. There is nothing and no-one to see. He misses having people, but at the same time has lost the will to refill an emptiness he knows will only get larger. There are bare walls and no curtains and no rugs on the floor.

There is a made bed, though. He will not give up completely. The corners have been swept, glass and shredded paper cleaned out.

The walls are still scarred and cracked. They are still stained with blood. They are still damp with another’s tears, the passing of time put on hold here. Looking anywhere but the floor will break him, he is certain.

The daffodil remains, and he doesn't know why.

* * *

There is a broken fob watch on the bed, the pieces torn apart. He fights the urge to go back in, that time, leaving a series of metal pieces all over the duvet. He stays away from Earth, at least for now.

As it turns out, there are always visitors. The human spy. He calls himself O, and smiles sweetly. O is genuine, and kind, and he tries not to grow attached again.

It can’t mean anything good. But ignorance does not work. O opens a door in the library, nearly slipping into the swimming pool as he goes, wrenching open the door. The human’s words slip past his ears; he is too busy wondering why this room, of all the rooms, is the one that O stumbled upon.

One thing does get his attention: O muttering something about his expression. That he’s looking at the room the same way he did when he talked about Rose. O wonders, idly, unintentionally cruelly, if he loved someone else.

He did, so he says so. Says he loved someone, once, maybe.

It’s as close to the truth as he is willing to get.

* * *

There is a tie on the desk, and an unwelcome intruder. Amy. She’s found a bedroom, apparently. The only one he does not want her to have. If the owner were here, she’d be dead by now. He debates moving her, only -

Only he doesn’t. He leans against the wall, attempting to look casual, and not panicky, drowning in unwanted memories. Amy looks at him oddly. She must see him going clammy.

He walks out the room, and tells her to do so. He has dust to get out of his eyes, and recollections to bury six feet under.

* * *

There is a fake goatee glued to the table, and maybe it was funny once. There’s an umbrella too, leaning innocuously against the wall.

Now, this all just feels like a sick joke. The sting of betrayal and the rising tide of the past. This is a tragedy, but all the villains are dead. Nowhere to be seen, ready to return at any chance.

The hero remains, not so eagerly. She laughs a little, and thinks Nardole would be angry if he found out.

Not that he will, because he’s abandoned and probably dead too.

She walks out, leaning against the wall. No point in letting the fam see this.

* * *

There is a matchbox on the floor, the one that O’s body was in. She crushes it under her heel, and tries not to think about the dead body in it. She locks the door, unwilling to talk right now. He’s dead. The fam won’t want to talk about it anyway.

Crashing out of the sky, about to die, is enough trauma for a month. She’s tempted to clear out the room, toss all the ruined clothes and shattered tech (screwdrivers, umbrellas, TCEs) away. She can’t quite do it, though. Like always.

There are things in this room she can’t stand, and people too (her). That doesn’t mean she wants to get rid of them. She throws out the matchbox, of course. Wipes her hands to get the feel of murder off her hands. One thing will stay, though.

There’s a daffodil on the windowsill, and damned if she’s going to move it.


End file.
